When you were forty you went outand bought yourself the bestrods and lures your hard-earned money could buy.You even boughta special fishing hat.You sat on the bankin your nylon chair waiting.The trees dripped honeydewonto thick water.And there were dragonflies.They made you think of your first kiss.

Then suddenlya small vibration singing on the lineand something tugging –Quick!Your fingers fumble at the reelyou bite your lip:a little silver perchwith orange finsrips twisting up into the air.

Your heart goes downseesawingplop.

You weren't expecting fish.

• Deborah Arnander is a literary translator, working from French to English. She's lived in Bangkok, Paris, San Francisco and Seville; now has two young children and lives in Norwich. She has just completed a diploma in creative writing at the University of East Anglia.

This poem is not intended for publicationand is to be found post-humously among my effectswhen the scholars and publishers scavenge throughthe biography-shaping artefacts of my life.

It has been carefully concealed so as to be conveniently found,a remarkable discovery that will revealthe visionary depths of my self awareness,the agonized sense of my own genius.It will shock and excite the scholars for its frankness, unashamed self celebration and its revelation of a naked ambition hitherto unsuspected.

It will affirm the poet's reputationnot only because he had known for yearswhat it had taken the literary establishmenta while to suspect, but because its status as a private piece reveals the extent of his modesty, self effacement and sensitivity to public opinion.

And some knowing bastard from a respectedliterary periodical will shatter the reverent toneand say “this poem is not a poem, for it reads exactly like prose”. And though I concur, his objection will seemchurlish, insensitive and ill-timedfor I, the genius, will be lyingdefenceless in my coffin.

Quite dead.

– – – – – – – – –

The Silence

At noon he shuts the stifling heat, roaring televisionand detached voices behind him and plunges intoblackness. The warm plastic glow of domesticityrecedes as he thrusts forward and senses the chillblast of winter slap his cheeks.The high childish shrieksand deep mannish moans fade, only to meshwith the whistling wind that assaults quivering grassand trembling branches with malicious violence. Suddenly he feels that weight of feeling he both fearsand craves. The illusion of company and warmththat his home creates seeps away and an icy wave ofringing solitude washes over him.

Suddenly he isn't just alone, he is always alone, butdesolate. It is that numb desperate aching pain that he is familiar with and yet privately cherishes. It is his own unique pain that no other will experience – a sparkling razor thread that sears hiswhole being and gives life a piercing edge.

He sits between two bushes beside the river, weigheddown by a stomach that churns slowly with emotion made dense and solid by time. He imaginesthat if he should jump into this liquid blackness he would plummet straight to the bottom. He wouldhave to sit on the river bed – black inky water all around him – and wait for the eerie echoes in hisswollen mind to swallow him up for good

He listens. The roar of silence rings in his ears.Nothing. Just nothing.

Should he have the powers that at times he feels hepossesses he could sit on the river and it would carry him through the country side, through thecities, over the estuary and into the sea. He could roam the country untouched and unseen – unshackled bya mind diseased by sadness and a stomachmade concrete by anxiety, anger, tears, longing.

He perches still and still no-one knows. More his owntime than ever – yet more than ever detached,disassociated, severed – on the fringes of time. Still silence reigns, darkness rules. And still nothing. Eerie deafening nothing.

He dislodges and trails his way home. This has neverhappened. No one will ever know. He leavesa section of himself there forever – perching on theedge, in the cold, by the liquid blackness – betrayed by that part of him that decided to gohome… back to the stifling warmth, roaring television…a world of cheap yellow glow and hollowuncomprehending voices.

• Geoff Mills says “I studied English at University and have had poetry and prose published. I am a fat man.”

Three days of steady rain pummeling the cabin's roof. This morning it has slowed to a soft hiss. The break comes in late afternoon, the wind gentling, spots of sun breaking though, clouds turning white, the surface mirroring the sky.

A gray heron rests on the red canoe. As I approach, it lifts off, wings tapping paired ripples.

The dimly lit basement room is full of poet wannabes, them dressed in second-hand scruff, me in coat and tie, just having delivered a lecture to a class of MBA students.

First thought, what am I doing here? Answer: I am needed here to provide balance for without me the entire room might tilt, might slide off the edge of the Earth.

Most readings are a kind of rant-rap-the military invasion of Iraq, the plight of indigenous peoples, the sins of the opposite sex [which was about being dumped].

My turn. I read a piece about the plight of my daughter suffering mental distress and drug addiction. I choke up, tears fall, telling me that I've bottled up my feelings. It seems to go over quite well with this “I'm cool because I live on the fringe of society and have a reservoir of disdain for anything normal” group, perhaps because I've mentioned the crystal meth word.

But, I don't feel particularly good about the piece – my critical voice warns that it's a bit smarmy, that the haiku are too contrived, that I shouldn't be writing about my daughter's plight. Oh, well. It's what I can do and that voice is always present, always trying to take the fun and emotional release out of writing. Regardless, I admit that when done reading a piece, however inept, I float between a bloated ego state and the mellowness of a mild depression helped along with a tote of raw red wine.

I did think that at least my haibun aka rant was REAL, whereas many of the overlong rants that I heard from some of the readers dealt with things imagined, with things not lived.

I remember being 20-years old, a member of a Berkeley, California mob ranting against the war in Vietnam. That was REAL because we were going to be drafted and forced to fight a non-declared war that we didn't believe in.

Home from the reading, the two cats that I live with appear when I enter the kitchen. They gaze skyward, as if praying to a cat god in the ceiling, their heart-felt mewing easily falling into the REAL rant form. I'd like to think that they were acknowledging me for my poetry reading feat, but I know that they are simply looking toward the cupboard where the cat treats are safely stored. Overwhelmed by their entreaties, I extend my hand, the desired treats in my palm. You see I have mellowed and made peace with the fat-cats of the world, indeed …

though small,I am the cat godof abundance

• Ray Rasmussen lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. His haiku, haiga, haibun and articles have been accepted for publication in Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Contemporary Haibun, Simply Haiku, Heron's Nest, Road Runner, Bottle Rockets, Contemporary Haibun Online, Haigaonline, Tinywords, Haiku Harvest, the World Haiku Review and other venues. He is the technical editor and designer of the Contemporary Haibun Online website. His web site designs are currently used by Simply Haiku and Roadrunner online journals. In a previous life, Ray thinks he may have been a university professor. Presently he enjoys the writing, photography and wilderness hiking. (There is a link to his website on our Links section.)

The touch of a∑Last night the tentshiveredsighedand I moanedin sweet dreamlockedforgotten faceswhile she snoredbeside me.I awokeloinsslickshifting uncomfortablyshamed for a momentby the memoryof the dream.• Dave Migman is a stone carver from Scotland. His work has been published in numerous poetry zines in the UK and his short stories appear sporadically on-line.